Day One: Traveling to Seattle

Woo hoo! I can't believe I'm waking up in Seattle! One thing is for sure, after our full day of traveling yesterday, I definitely wasn't "Sleepless"! We woke up at 4am yesterday (which if you know Ben and me, is pretty much a miracle) to get to the airport by 5. (Thanks to my Mom for getting up so early to take us!) The airport check in and security was a breeze and we made it to our terminal with plenty of time to kill...so I took some pics of course.




Our flight took off at 7:15am and we arrived in Phoenix, AZ around 9:30. Going back in time 3 hours, ugh. Sidenote: if you have the opportunity to take a direct flight, do it!!! We changed planes uneventfully and headed to Seattle. Flying over the Grand Canyon was amazing, but my pictures didn't really do anything justice. We arrived in Seattle at 1:35pm (4:35 Atl time).

We went to Baggage claim and our bags were the FIRST ones to come out!!! When does that ever happen??? Walked outside and got a cab immediately, got to our hotel in 20 minutes. We could not believe how smoothly everything had gone.

The first thing I noticed about Seattle is the light here. It just hits everything so crisply! A photographer's dream. We pulled up to our hotel, Hotel Max, and walked into the lobby...wow! This place looked cool online, but it was just a-mazing. If I were to design a hotel, it would be just like this (with slightly bigger rooms). The hallways are awesome and each guestroom door has a full size black and white photo from an artist here in the area. Each floor has a different theme, of course I made Ben go to all of them with me. Our hall features cool abstract architecture photos from around town. Other floors are similar with a different theme. There's a Seattle grunge music floor. Each door has a concert photo of different musicians from here.. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc. That was Ben's favorite floor of course!













At this point the sky opened up and it started POURING and HAILING!!! We sat in our room and thought, "Rain in Seattle". What a cliche. But after about 10 minutes, the sun came out and it was the most beautiful light I've ever seen! (Sorry to go on and on about the light..). We walked around the block and took some pics. Stopped by the sushi restaurant, Red Fin, that's connected to our hotel and had some of the best sushi we've ever eaten!


We made our own art
We headed back to our room (exhausted) and chilled out for a bit. Then my old college roomie, Amanda (who has lived here for 4 years) came and picked us up! I was so excited to see her after 4 years:) We got to meet her boyfriend Todd, who has lived here all his life. He gave us some good suggestions for what to do while we were here. So, the 4 of us headed to an awesome restaurant (I know we just ate sushi, but it's vacation). It was a seafood restaurant (Mc'Cormicks and...something) that was right on the water (not the ocean...I think it was a salt water lake?). Good food, good catching up with an old friend.
We are definitely hanging out today too.

So, we got back to the hotel around 9, but it was more like midnight to us. And since we had been up since 4, we were beat. We ordered "The Wrestler" on Pay per View and unfortunately I passed out about 15 minutes in. Ben says it was good though!
So, here we are...it's about 9am here and Ben's still sleeping. This is the best time to blog, so I will probably try to do this every morning!

Thanks for checking in! Will have a ton of more pics tomorrow!